Unit of Assessment

Summary Impact Type

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Summary of the impact

Research conducted by Durham University on security sector reform has had
substantial national,
transnational and international impact. Specifically, it has: (1)
substantially influenced good practice
promulgated by the United Nations' (UN) Special Rapporteur on the
promotion and protection of
human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; (2)
informed the Intelligence
and Security Committee's (ISC) response to a Government-led review aimed
at improving security
and intelligence agencies' accountability and, through this, the content
of the Justice and Security
Act 2013; (3) influenced the Council of Europe's (COE) decision to
strengthen rights protection for
members of its member states' armed forces; and (4) substantially
contributed to the Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) efforts to strengthen human
rights protection for
armed forces personnel across its 56 participating states.

Underpinning research

Intelligence Accountability: After a cycle of scandal and
reform across a number of states and
worldwide controversies surrounding counter-terrorism since 9/11, and
owing to the prominent role
of intelligence within government, ensuring the accountability of
intelligence agencies is a key
governance concern. The underpinning research, conducted by Leigh (in part
with Born and
Johnson), confronts this challenge by assessing processes of
democratisation, accountability and
rights protection in the field of national security with a particular
focus on security and intelligence
agencies (outputs 1-2, 4-6). The research involved Leigh (with
Born), under the auspices of the
Durham University Human Rights Centre, partnering with the Geneva Centre
for Democratic
Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and Norwegian Parliamentary Committee for
Oversight of
Intelligence (EOS). The research comprised a comparative study of
intelligence accountability:
`Parliaments and Model Laws: drafting, enacting and implementing
legislation on intelligence
oversight'. The findings of this project, which reviewed eight countries,
emphasised the importance
of (a) oversight covering a country's entire intelligence community, (b)
there being multiple sources
of democratic oversight, (c) parliamentary `ownership' of oversight
arrangements, and (d)
independent and effective procedures to handle complaints against
intelligence agencies.

Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel: The OSCE is the
world's largest regional security
organisation involving 56 participating states. Leigh's research, funded
by the OSCE Office of
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) (2005-8) and involving
collaboration with
DCAF, evaluated existing legislation and policy in participating states to
identify and promote best
practice, building on the OSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military
Aspects of Security 1994. The
research, which took the form of an OSCE Handbook co-authored with Bonn (output
3), drew on
the extensive cooperation of the ministries of defence in 35 countries and
on official stakeholder
workshops sponsored at ministerial level in Berlin and Bucharest in 2006.
The range and depth of
analysis that this research contains, engaging multiple aspects of rights
protection for serving
members and veterans (including the effective promotion and enforcement of
civil, political, social
& economic rights, freedom from discrimination, and equality) is
unprecedented in the legal
literature on armed forces. The Handbook seeks to strengthen human rights
protection for service
personnel. It identifies significant problems with bullying and
initiation, and disparities across states
in the treatment of certain rights, especially concerning restrictions on
democratic participation,
freedom of expression and collective representation. In response, it
advocates a `Citizens in
Uniform' approach, proposing that any restrictions on the rights of
service personnel should be
strictly related to concrete military objectives and be no more than are
necessary to fulfil them. It
finds no contradiction between respecting human rights of personnel and
maintaining combat
readiness. The Handbook contains 119 proposals for strengthening rights
protection for armed
forces personnel, including human rights training and the introduction of
military ombudsmen.

The research was carried out while Leigh was a Professor at Durham
University and Born was
a senior fellow at DCAF (outputs 3-5).

References to the research

1. I Leigh, (edited with L Johnson and H Born), Who's Watching
the Spies: Establishing
Intelligence Service Accountability, (Potomac Books, 2005) [ISBN-10:
1574888978]. This reflects
research commissioned, funded and supported by major international
institutions. It was submitted
as a RA2 output in RAE 2008 where 95% of outputs rated 2* or above.
Potomac Books is a
specialist military publisher and was acquired by University of Nebraska
Press in 2013.

2. I Leigh, `Rebalancing Rights and National Security: Reforming
UK Intelligence Oversight a
Decade After 9/11' (2012) 27(5) Intelligence and National Security
721-737
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2012.708525].
This is the leading peer-reviewed journal in this
field, founded by Christopher Andrews (Official Historian of MI5).

3. I Leigh & H Born, Handbook on Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms of Armed Forces
Personnel, (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
Office of Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights, Warsaw, 2008) (I Leigh, c. 50% authorship), [ISBN:
978-83-60190-53-1]. The
Handbook drew on questionnaire results from the ministries of defence of
35 participating states.
The results were tested at two international workshops and subjected,
before publication, to
detailed scrutiny by desk and field officers in the OSCE and at a workshop
involving academic and
user experts organised by the ODIHR.

5. I Leigh & H Born `Democratic Accountability of Intelligence
Services', Armaments, Disarmament
and International Security, Yearbook of the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute
2007, (Oxford University Press 2007), chapter 5 (I Leigh, c. 50%
authorship), [ISBN: 978-019-923021-1].
This is an annual publication of one of the world's leading research
institutes in the field
of security studies. It is fully peer-reviewed.

6. European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice
Commission) (I Leigh, c. 40%
authorship), Report on Democratic Oversight of the Security Services in
Council of Europe States,
Study 388/2006 (CDL_DEM 2007-001) (June 2007)
[http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/jun/venice-com-control-of-security-services.pdf].
The Venice
Commission is the COE's advisory body on constitutional matters, composed
of constitutional and
international law experts, supreme or constitutional court judges and
members of national
parliaments and is recognised as an international independent legal
think-tank. The draft report
written by a working group (of which Leigh was a member) was discussed
within the sub-Commission
on Democratic Institutions before being formerly adopted by the Venice
Commission.

Details of the impact

Armed forces, security and intelligence services are traditionally closed
domains resistant to
external influence. In spite of this, the extensive reach of these impacts
can be seen in the fact that
they have significantly affected the standards endorsed by the UN and COE,
as well as the world's
largest security organisation (the OSCE), UK government, and the UK
Intelligence and Security
Committee. The research impact has arisen through direct engagement with
senior policy-makers
and parliamentarians in several countries (eg Albania, Azerbaijan,
Georgia, Kosovo and the UK) as
well as with the COE, OSCE and UN. The significance of the impact lies in
the changes in
international security sector policy and law reform on security and
intelligence, as evidenced by
legislative change in the UK and reforms relating to the human rights of
armed forces personnel in
the OSCE, COE and their member states.

1. Influencing the UN in the field of human rights protection:
Durham University's research on
intelligence governance (outputs 4 and 6) were `the most
influential secondary sources in shaping
the focus of the UN's Compilation of good practices on legal and
institutional frameworks and
measures that ensure respect for human rights by intelligence agencies
while countering terrorism,
including on their oversight report submitted by the Special
Rapporteur on countering terrorism
while respecting human rights to the UN Human Rights Council (source
1). According to the
report's co-author, a Project Coordinator for DCAF, the UN Report is `the
first set of international
principles on the regulation and oversight of intelligence services' (source
1). It was released in
2010 and has since been `translated into all UN official languages ...
presented throughout the
world and cited by a number of leading national intelligence oversight
bodies' (source 1).

He continues `more than half of the good practices presented to the UN
Human Rights Council
were directly influenced' by outputs 4 and 6 (source 1).
Of the 35 `good practices' identified 29
are either wholly or substantially the same as (19), or partially based on
(10), those elaborated in
output 4. The report follows output 4 by (a) closely
following its substantive content in the
practices endorsed and (b) adopting a best practice approach to
intelligence oversight standards
based on a survey of legislation. The report's co-author describes the
analysis in output 4 as
having been `invaluable in shaping' the sections dealing with human rights
protection (source 2
[27-33]), information collection (source 2 [34-46]) and the
use of personal data (source 2 [37-40])
and that `the framework for intelligence governance pioneered in [output
1] ... underpins the
approach taken in the UN compilation' (source 1). The endorsed
good practices include ensuring
a clear mandate and legal basis for security and intelligence agencies,
oversight institutions,
complaints processes and effective remedies, principles of responsibility
and accountability for
state institutions and individual officials. As recommended in output
1, the practices also endorse
working principles of impartiality, non-discrimination and professionalism
in, among other things,
intelligence collection and the use of powers of arrest and detention, and
intelligence-sharing and
cooperation (source 2, good practices 1-13, 15-26, 31-33 & 35).

2. Influencing the UK Intelligence and Security Committee and
Justice and Security Act
2013: In November 2010, Leigh presented options for reform of
intelligence oversight at a high-level
policy conference supported by the Cabinet Office at the Royal United
Services Institute,
timed to coincide with the Government's Strategic Defence and Security
Review and the then-planned
Counter-Terrorism Legislation Review (launched in October 2011). Following
this, Leigh
was one of two academics invited to brief the Chair of the ISC in writing
on reform options (source
3). Drawing on outputs 2, 4-6, Leigh (with Gill, Honorary
Fellow, University of Liverpool)
advocated enhanced democratic oversight of the intelligence and security
services by reforming
the remit, status and powers of the ISC and introducing an independent
fact-finding process
(source 3). These recommendations were subsequently discussed at a
meeting of the ISC and
shaped its own submission to the Government's review (source 3).
In that submission the ISC
proposed that it should become a Committee of Parliament, have an extended
remit to cover the
entire intelligence community in the UK, have the power to compel the
provision of information
(subject to a ministerial veto), and have greater investigative and
research resources (source 4,
section 7).

A number of these proposals were considered in the Justice and
Security Green Paper(source
5, [3.16]) and were subsequently enacted in the Justice and Security
Act 2013. The legislation
reflects Leigh's briefing to the ISC and the underlying research (outputs
2, 4-6) by extending
oversight to the whole intelligence community and by enhancing
parliamentary ownership of
oversight through parliamentary appointment of ISC members, provision to
those members of
security of tenure and control over Chair selection. The Act also gives
the ISC powers to obtain
`operational' information and greater autonomy over the content and timing
of reports to Parliament
(see respectively, output 4, chs. 16, 18 & 19 and
Justice and Security Act 2013, sections 1(3),
1(6), 2(3), 3(1) and 3(6) and sched. 1, para 1).

3. Influencing standards for rights protection of Armed Forces
personnel in the Council of
Europe (COE): In 2010 the Council of Ministers of the COE
formally adopted a series of principles
for protecting the human rights of armed forced personnel based
substantially on output 3 (source
6). Durham University's research is the sole non-treaty source
referred to in this resolution. Of the
85 principles in the resolution, 37 correspond directly to best practices
advocated in output 3. (See
those concerning torture and inhuman and degrading punishment (COE 10-12;
output 3 chs. 16 &
20), military discipline (COE 21, and 33; output 3, ch. 21),
trial of criminal charges (COE 29-31;
output 3, ch. 21), respect for private and family life (COE 36, 38-9; output
3 chs. 14 & 17),
freedom of religion and conscientious objection (COE 40-41 and 44-46; output
3, chs.11 & 10),
freedom of expression (COE 47-48; output 3, ch. 8), the right to
access to relevant information
(COE 49; output 3 ch. 15), the right of peaceful assembly and
association (COE 53-57; output 3,
chs. 8 & 9), the right to vote and stand for election (COE 58
and 59; output 3, ch. 8), the right to
fair remuneration and a retirement pension (COE 63-65; output 3, chs.
13, 17 & 18), dignity at
work and non-discrimination (COE 66, 70-74,75 and 77; output 3, chs.
11-14 & 17), the treatment
of young recruits (COE 79-80 and 82-84; output 3 ch. 15), human
rights training (COE 83-85;
output 3 ch. 19), and the right o complain to an independent body
(COE 85; output 3 chs. 16 &
22). The resolution recommends that member states give effect to
these principles in national
legislation and through military training, practice and dissemination.
Although not formally binding,
this resolution provides an international impetus for legislative and
practical reform at domestic
level across the 47 member states of the COE, with the principles
providing rights-based
benchmarks for that process.

4. Promoting Rights Protection for Armed Forces Personnel in OSCE
Countries: The findings
of output 3 have been extensively used by the OSCE to raise
awareness in participating states of
the rights of armed forces personnel and to advocate policy change at the
national level. The
OSCE has funded presentations and translations of output 3 in over
12 countries and distributed it
to ministries of defence in all 56 OSCE countries. It was officially
launched, in May 2008, by
DCAF/OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at an
international conference
focussing on the recommendations concerning the role of military ombudsmen
in protecting human
rights of armed forces personnel and subsequently presented at the UN
Human Rights Council
and at the Congress of the European Organisation of Military Associations
(Euromil) (source 7).
These activities have resulted in concrete changes in a number of member
states. For example, in
Bosnia-Herzegovina the Handbook has prompted discussion in the
Parliamentary Defence
Committee of the introduction of a military ombudsman's office (as
advocated in chapter 22 of
output 3) and an agreement `to increase efforts to ensure gender
equality in the armed forces' and
`to look again at existing legislation on freedom of association, which is
currently restricted for
armed forces personnel' as advocated in chapter 9 (source 8, p 35).
Similarly, in 2009 the
Armenian government and OSCE agreed to revitalise NGO oversight over the
security sector and
to set up a training programme on human rights for Armenian armed forces
personnel as
advocated in chapter 19 of output 3 (source 8, p. 35). Output
3 has also been used by the
Armenian Ministry of Defence for training the staff of army units and
military educational institutions
(source 9, [4]). In 2010, Albania also committed to including the
Handbook (output 3) in the
curriculum of its military academy (source 10, p 41).

Sources to corroborate the impact

Testimony from Project Coordinator DCAF: Geneva Centre for Democratic
Control of Armed
Forces, 23 May 2013.

UN General Assembly, `Compilation of good practices on legal and
institutional frameworks and
measures that ensure respect for human rights by intelligence agencies
while countering terrorism,
including on their oversight', Human Rights Council, 14th Session, 17
May 2010, A/HRC/14/46https://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/unhrc.pdf.

Council of Europe, Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)4 of the Committee of
Ministers to member
states on human rights of members of the armed forces, adopted by the
Committee of Ministers on
24 February 2010 at the 1077th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies.https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1590149&Site=CM.